Will Shortz tests his own limits of committment, and his brains ability to be fully activated. "Playing ping pong everyday is sort of like solving a crossword puzzle: the further you take it, the better you feel" -Will Shortz, Editor of the New York Times Crossword Puzzle and Table Tennis Fanatic.

(Image via Etsy ) It’s the most important day of your life. Why wouldn’t you hire a “social media artist” to live-tweet your wedding? By Alana Levinson T he problem with the #CornStew hashtag is it’s not unique. Even worse, it’s littered with pictures of corn stew, quite possibly the most unromantic…

OUR best selves are merely one doodle away. Where once drawing and other painterly pursuits were the province of starving artists or simply child’s play, unlocking one’s creativity has become the latest mantra of personal growth and career success. We nurture our inner Helmut Newtons on Instagram.…

At a design conference recently, I was introduced to Leeo , a new product that I initially understood to be a reboot of something really in need of a redesign: the smoke detector. As the designer explained his process, I quickly came to understand that Leeo was nothing of the sort. It was a gadget,…

I NEVER went to Iceland. I suppose I should say I didn’t go to Iceland this summer — never sounds a little melodramatic, possibly terminal. It’s not as if I’ve died and all hope of ever having gone to Iceland is obviated. But for some reason this missed opportunity is causing me more than the usual,…

Twitter contains multitudes. You’ve probably heard of Black Twitter , Weird Twitter , and Social Justice Twitter. There are hundreds of loose communities like these, each with their own esoteric humor, dialect, and participants—their “collective personality,” for lack of a more specific term. But…

What kind of music do you listen to? Your answer is probably something like, "Oh, a little bit of everything." Or maybe, "Anything but country and metal." (And polka. Everybody hates polka.) The honest truth is, you probably don't know. You just like good stuff, and leave it at that. If you use…

EVERYONE knows that texting and tweeting are ruining the kids’ writing. Get our daily newsletter Upgrade your inbox and get our Daily Dispatch and Editor's Picks. Or are they? Getting things into 140 characters might be teaching young writers one of the most cherished virtues among those who deal…

The Colors Of An App Icon I wrote an eBook called “Secrets of the App Store”, get it free ! At Appbot we get to see a lot of app icons while providing insights into app reviews. In the past I have studied everything from app descriptions , to screenshots , to names , to countries . The one that has…

Speech given by David Foster Wallace to Kenyon College's 2005 graduating class.

Interviews by Jon Pareles Produced by Wilson Andrews, Alicia DeSantis, Taige Jensen, Yuliya Parshina-Kottas and Graham Roberts Photography Alex Di Suvero Directory of Photography (Diplo) Kai Regan Directory of Photography (Justin Bieber and Skrillex) Nikita Carpenter Jr. and Sean Biffar Camera…

Allow the pearl-clutching to commence—or continue. Photo illustration by Juliana Jiménez. Photo by Thinkstock. In 1860s Manhattan, young men and women in search of some excitement could duck into a little stationery shop uptown, open the unmarked notebook on the counter, and scribble a message to…

The Science Of Love In The 21st Century Eve Fairbanks Once upon a time, in the Pony Expresso cafe in Seattle, a man and a woman began to experience the long-mysterious but increasingly scientifically investigated thing we call love. The first stage is called "limerence." This is the spine-tingling,…

Suicide is a very rare phenomenon at the far end of human anguish. And yet its existence tells us something crucial about how fragile we all are: it's a further reminder of the need for compassion. If you like our films, take a look at our shop (we ship worldwide): https://goo.gl/qUbSPj If you are…

Hi! Today seems like a good day to answer some frequently asked questions. Q: Are you marking any significant anniversaries today? A: Yes, yes I am! Today is the second anniversary of Steve’s death. Q: Who is Steve? A: Steve was my husband uh DOI. Q: Urm, now I feel bad for not knowing that. A: It’s…

Emil Zatopek wins the marathon at the 1952 Olympic Games in Helsinki, making it a golden treble. Photograph: EPA I n 1952 Jim Peters, the British marathon champion, world record-holder and pre-race favourite, was on the track at the Olympic Stadium in Helsinki, warming up for perhaps the most…

ILLUSTRATION BY MIN HEO This is the first piece in a three-part series on sleep. Read part two , on sleeping and dreaming, and part three , on wakefulness. Here’s what’s supposed to happen when you fall asleep. Your body temperature falls, even as your feet and hands warm up—the temperature changes…

There was a time when wearing anything less than a tweed jacket or a tailored shift left you underdressed in a college classroom or office, but those days are long gone. Since the 1960s, American youth have been pushing the boundaries of exactly how casual it is acceptable to be in public: By the…

My 15 favorite tricks for appearing smart in emails Update: My book 100 Tricks to Appear Smart in Meetings comes out October 4th! Pre-order it here . If you don’t care about appearing smart in emails, you can stop reading now. Oh good, we’re alone. In the corporate world, there is no ground more…

COPENHAGEN — AS we glide under a bridge on the city canal tour, our guide announces that we have entered a quiet zone. “This is a residential area,” she says, nodding toward balconies where Danes are enjoying coffee — or maybe wine. “I’ll resume talking in five minutes.” Denmark is one of the…

You know that we’re not running the correct out-of-bounds play, right? That our defensive press is a mess? That we’re close to another loss? Coach Marc Skelton leaned in close, his eyes inches from those of his teenage players, his questions pregnant with expletives. He had paced, implored, tossed…

T he boarding procedure has barely started at Chicago O’Hare, and Ben Schlappig has already taken over the first-class cabin. Inside Cathay Pacific Flight 807 bound for Hong Kong, he’s passing out a couple of hundred dollars’ worth of designer chocolates to a small swarm of giggling flight…

Roger Taylor, John Deacon, Freddie Mercury and Brian May In 1980, ‘The Game’ became Queen’s biggest hit album in America, yet the record’s success ushered in a dramatic fall in popularity If you were living in New York City in 1980 and listening to the urban radio station WBLS-FM, there was a good…

On June 26, 2008, our friend Michael Seibel introduced us to 7 prominent investors in Silicon Valley. We were attempting to raise $150,000 at a $1.5M valuation. That means for $150,000 you could have bought 10% of Airbnb. Below you will see 5 rejections. The other 2 did not reply. The investors that…

1. Work with Amazing People Don’t compromise on who you choose to found your company with and hire. Do not put up with ego-centric personalities or downer attitudes. 2. Take on Big Challenges It’s pretty simple: Hard things are valuable; easy things are not so valuable. Reaching the mountaintop is…

Jo�o Fazenda A COUPLE of weeks ago, I saw a stranger crying in public. I was in Brooklyn’s Fort Greene neighborhood, waiting to meet a friend for breakfast. I arrived at the restaurant a few minutes early and was sitting on the bench outside, scrolling through my contact list. A girl, maybe 15 years…

A Maron-Obama selfie. Marc Maron Friday morning, Marc Maron—whose WTF podcast has featured some of the most raw and riveting interviews with comedians of all time—interviewed President Obama. This was not something Maron had ever expected to do. And yet, months ago, Obama’s people reached out to…

John Waters gave a spectacular 2015 RISD graduation speech on creative rebellion and the artist’s task to cause constructive chaos. Find annotated highlights transcribed over on Brain Pickings .

So today I finished excerpting my entire book Dear Hannah on Medium . After 3 months and 82 posts — 8 of which did well on social media — I can say I’m very happy with the results. Below I describe what I liked about using Medium, how I got the most out of it, and some thoughts on how it can fit…

What makes the world’s top CEOs so successful, rich and successful? This question is on the minds of every hungry entrepreneur in the world, including Bob Johnson, CEO of Slackeyhub. “If I knew what makes these men (and women) tick, I feel like it would give me the edge I need to really take over…

(Photo by mike ) That moment when you realize you’re a little creepy. I’m giving a talk tonight to 150 people in Hoboken. I was going to write a different story about August 18, 1994. In Hoboken. But something happened. I took a walk earlier to prepare my talk and I settled into a cafe. I took out…

MEAN bosses could have killed my father. I vividly recall walking into a hospital room outside of Cleveland to see my strong, athletic dad lying with electrodes strapped to his bare chest. What put him there? I believe it was work-related stress. For years he endured two uncivil bosses. Rudeness and…

WE turn to screens for nearly every decision. Where to eat. Where to vacation. Where to eat on vacation. Where to get treatment for the food poisoning you got at that restaurant where you ate on vacation. Where to write a negative review calling out the restaurant that gave you food poisoning and…

This is Part 1 of a four-part series on Elon Musk’s companies. __________ PDF and ebook options: We made a fancy PDF of this post for printing and offline viewing (see a preview here ), and an ebook containing the whole four-part Elon Musk series: ___________ Last month, I got a surprising phone…

Starting a company while planning a wedding while living on the road This month marks the two year anniversary of Rosie and I leaving our jobs — and the 97th week we’ve been living on the road. (That’s nearly 700 days, for those of you counting.) We call ourselves accidental entrepreneurs because we…

A Roundtable Discussion on The Surprising Resurgence of Newsletters I stole this picture from Exact Target. See — they are killing email. No one wants anymore email, right? Inbox Zero, blah blah, 100k emails unread on iOs looks like this, blah blah, remember spam, blah blah, what about Slack, blah…

After the response to this recent LifeHacker piece , I thought I would explain the system I use to take notes, research books and keep track of anecdotes, stories and info I come across in my work. This isn’t the perfect system. It might not work for you. All I can say is that since learning it…

It is often said that we are living in a golden age of comedy, when new varieties of funny sprout from every screen and nightclub stage. We are lucky to be around in the era of Hannibal Buress and Amy Schumer, of “ Jane the Virgin ” and “ black-ish ,” of “ Broad City ” and “ Louie ,” of Amy Poehler…

In soccer-obsessed Brazil, going to a match means a chance to see some of the best players in the world–and face the possibility of getting beaten up or even killed. A state championship in May ended with police firing grenades into a mob of fans who were attacking rivals with sticks and seats torn…